German company PearC begins selling line of Mac clones

A German company called PearC is selling a variety of configurable Mac clones …

Since Mac clone maker Psystar has been selling its products since April 2008, it has been pretty much the big dog in town for PC hardware with an OS X install... and unclear legal footing. The company hasn't had much competition, but things have started heating up a bit in Europe thanks to PearC, a German company that is offering "the PC with Mac OS X" in a variety of configurations, including some with Blu-ray drives and speedy new processors.

Although Apple's lawsuit against Psystar last July has probably had a lot to do with the lack of Mac clone competitors, it wasn't much of a deterrent in this particular case. In an interview with Der Spiegel, PearC's parent Hypermeganet noted that differences in how German law deals with EULAs may mean that PearC's products are legal in Germany.

Based on a bit of quick research, my understanding of the issue is that German law indicates that the conditions of a EULA that users can't see before purchase cannot be enforced (or that's what PearC would like to argue, anyway). Since the EULA is inside the box and users can't see it, the argument will be that the parts about not installing OS X on non-Apple hardware are void. Even if that's true, though, the legality would likely only apply to Germany, so everyone else would be out of luck.

All that aside, the PearC machines appear to be quite powerful. The PearC Starter starts at �499, and comes with a variety of dual-core processors, up to 750GB of hard drive space, and either a GeForce 7200GS or a GeForce 8400GS. The Advanced model begins at �799, and can be configured with a Core 2 Quad processor, a Blu-ray burner, and a GeForce 8400GS, 9800GT, or 9800GTX. Last but not least, the Professional model starts at �1,499, but has a Core i7 processor, 1TB of storage standard, and up to 12GB of RAM. I would imagine that Apple will file a lawsuit against PearC before too long, though, so there's no telling if the company will be in business for nearly a year like Psystar, or just for as much time as it takes for Apple to draw up a complaint.